Answer: The Direct Method is an approach to teaching students to get involved with the target language fully. It is said that teachers will never allow students to speak their native language; they are encouraged to use the target in all situations. This method is implemented to boost students’ speaking skills and help students feel confident while communicating in the target language. The teacher helps them like a partner in the class. When students want to associate the meanings with the target language, the teacher tells them in the target language by giving examples or showing visuals. The teacher never translates into the students’ native language. This approach never allows students to use their native language, so students are able to study other cultures as well. Students are allowed to listen to people speaking in the target language. By practicing this approach, students surely can improve their four skills fast because students learn a lot of vocabulary. There are many techniques used in The Direct Method, such as reading aloud, question and answer exercises, getting students to self-correct, conversation practice, fill-in-the-blanks exercises, dictation, map drawing, and paragraph writing.

Answer: + The similarities of GTM and DM:

-        GTM and DM actually focus on the same goals where students are expected to learn the target language effectively and well.

+ The differences of GTM and DM:

-        In GTM, students are taught to read literature in the target language, but they need to understand the grammar, and vocabularies of the target language in their native language first. Contrastingly, students are encouraged to communicate in the target language, according to direct method.

-        Teacher is the authority in Grammar Translation Method; whereas, teacher is a partner for communication in Direct Method.

-        Students are not allowed to use their native language in DM class; however, Grammar Translation Method teacher permits the students to use their first language.

-        GTM values literary language, and DM is considered spoken language is the focused goal.

-        When it comes to tests, GTM always provides tested related translation from one language to another. At the same time, DM designs tests related to oral and writing tests.

+ Example:

-        In Cambodian context, Grammar Translation Method is very popular in public school. As I used to be in a school in Kampot, my English teacher translate every single word to the class every text he brough to the class. He used Khmer most of the time, and gave the explanation in Khmer as well. Students are passive as they just listened, write, and follow everything teacher told. From my point of view and experience, I think it is effective for those who are good at memorizing.

-        Furthermore, it is completely different to private school since teacher uses English all time even in their break time. From my own experience as a teacher, I am not permitted to use Khmer with students. The school encourages me to communicate with the students. The school considers English environment as a great part to adapt to English. Therefore, students are able to communicate well in English.

I plan to integrate immersion in the target language into my future teaching, and the Direct Method provides an excellent framework for achieving this. The Direct Method encourages me to use the target language exclusively. This language immersion during instruction pushes the students to use the target language among themselves as well as with the teachers. Techniques such as conversation practice, using visual aids to support the meanings of words, and acting out scenes help the students "naturally" associate the meanings in the target language. The vocabulary and the language structures that they learn in this way are "sticking" because the way they learn them is more interactive.

- Objective: at the end of the lesson, the students will be able to spell and write the vocabulary of the fruits correctly by looking at the provided flashcards.

- Technique: ss spell the vocabulary of fruit based on the given flashcard individually.

- Data: fruit postcards

- Guided: T shows ss the flashcard and ss come to the board and T lets ss identify, spell, and write the words.

- Students respond: ss spell the name of fruit on the board.

- Work arrangement: individual work.

- Time: 50 minutes.

Description

The teacher comes to the class, and the students politely greet the teacher, and the teacher greets the students. How was your day? Have you reviewed the lesson? And do you know, what are we going to learn today? After greeting each other, the teacher starts to ask one student, what is your favorite fruit? What does it look like? Can you spell your favorite fruit? And the teacher continues to do that with 4 different students that spend about 10 minutes. The teacher observed that the students could name the fruit, but they still could not spell the words correctly.

-  After the discussion, the teacher provides 15 vocabularies of fruit on the board with the English definitions and no translation in L1.

-The teacher gives students around 10 minutes to copy the lesson.

- Next, T starts to explain the vocabulary to the students by reading and showing them the flashcards related to those words. Ss repeats after the teacher and ss continues to read like this three times which takes about 20 minutes .

- First, T see that the students have obstacles with pronunciation and they are not quite sure what those words mean (E.g. Raspberry, blueberry…), so after T tries to explain them by using only direct methods which tell the meaning in the target language and no translation for them into their language by using the flashcards, ss start to catch up with the word both spelling and pronunciation.

- To make sure ss can spell the word correctly , T tells the ss to close the book and calls students one by one to spell and write the words on the board based on what they see when T raises the flashcard up for around 10 minutes.

- At the last round, ss reflect on what they have learn today and T sees that the ss can spell and write the words correctly on the board.

5. In Cambodia, English is the target language which is included and allowed to teach in Cambodia educational systems everywhere in Cambodia. Hence, it is really common when we talk about English language because everyone is being studied every day. Moreover, if we talk about the public school in our country, most students are very careless with studying English because they think that this language is not vital to them at all meanwhile students in private schools are being hectic with studying this language. In contrast, public school students always realize that they were really regretful after enrolling in the students. They realized that English is very important to them because everything that they are searching is all about English use. Moreover, the lectures in the university rarely use Khmer language to communicate in the class. Hence, the direct method is really needed in order to involve in Cambodian education system. There are three reasons why it is very important. the first one about adapting with English environment can help them improve their ability. This is very important because the more they can adapt, the more they feel they are used to it. They will not feel perplexing or difficult since they always stand in English environment. Furthermore, it helps the students improve their speaking skill effectively in the future due to using this language more than speaking our own language. The second reason is that it will help them in the future time when it comes for instance, when they graduate high school and need to pursue their higher education, it will help them using English effectively. Hence, it can facilitate them more and more. The last reason is that students will be more understandable about English and how useful it is for their life because when we take a look at the present job opportunity, almost all of the jobs require people who can use English incredibly and professionally. Therefore, including the direct method onto teaching English in public schools in Cambodia is very suitable and it also provides the positive outcomes to the learners although it is not in the present, but it is probably in the future time.